Sudan: Alien Nation

As this month marks the one-year anniversary of Sudan’s division into two countries, we head into the little-known central Sudan to find a world of surprises.

By Melissa Shales | Originally published in WildJunket Magazine Aug/Sep2012

“W hat do you do?” the guardian at the Royal City in Meroe greets me courteously and gravely.

It is the usual welcome. The Sudanese are not used to tourists, so they don’t bother asking where you come from. Everyone is here for research or academic purpose. On my first couple of days, I said I was a tourist and got a rabbit-in-the-headlights stare of panicked bewilderment. Now, I answer gravely.

“I am a historian, I am writing a book.”

“Ah,” he nods his head thoughtfully. “Do you have a PhD?” Immediately cut down to size, I realize that most of the foreigners he meets are archaeologists from august institutions such as the British Museum or the Smithsonian.

But I’m here for a less noble purpose: to answer my own curiosities about this little-known country of Sudan in Northeastern Africa.

The New Inundation

Sudan, once the largest and one of the most geographically diverse states in Africa, split into two countries in July 2011. Today, both Sudan and South Sudan remain some of the least visited countries in Africa – and their turbulent past has all but deterred travelers from making their way to this part of the world.

Although various ongoing conflicts mean much of Sudan remains off limits, travel is possible in the central and northeast regions where ancient pyramids and hieroglyphics provide a mesmerizing history lesson.

Located directly south of Egypt, the Sudanese Nile holds a vast treasury of magnificent ancient monuments, most of them largely unexcavated and unknown to the world.

This was home to the ancient civilization of Kush, a powerful trading culture with strong links and rivalries with the Egyptian pharaohs. Countless pyramids remain as legacies of these successive kingdoms – and you can easily experience them without another person in sight.

Sadly, many of these pyramids are under threat from the rising waters of giant Chinese-backed hydroelectric dams. One such dam, the Merowe Dam near Dongola, was completed just before I arrived. Many foreigners have never heard of it and yet it holds back the fifth largest lake in the world. It is a perfect metaphor for this extraordinary yet alien country, where everything is arranged out of sight, and behind closed doors.

Where the Rivers Meet

In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, I feel as if I had stepped out of the real world into the setting of an Indiana Jones movie – and very little of what I see in the country contradicts the notion.

Men roam in crisp white turbans and cotton tunics, brandishing silver swords from their hips; women linger in their shadow-like flocks of pastel butterflies with their floor-length veils billowing in the wind. Sand blows through the dusty streets of old-world Khartoum, snaking their way around khaki-colored buildings and labyrinth souks.

The city itself is laid out in the shape of a Union Jack, its mustard-yellow colonial buildings now home to President Bashir’s less than salubrious government. Even the grand mosque, Mesjid al-Kabir, with its sandy-brown walls and rocketing minarets, resembles the landmark of old Persia.

I start my day at Souq Al Arabi, one of the largest open markets in Africa. Spread over several blocks in the center of Khartoum, the souq is lined with rows upon dizzying rows of stalls selling colorful abaya, shiny kitchenware and heaps of blinding spices and herbs. I look for souvenirs but fail. The only possible options are highly illegal – snakeskin slippers and utterly revolting ashtrays made from the heads of baby crocodiles.

Across the Nile River is the twin city of Omdurman, known as the old Arab quarter. This was the backdrop of the great clash between Christianity and Islam – the battle between British colonizers and an Islamic nationalist leader still revered as one of the great pan-African heroes.

The nearby camel market is also roaring with life today, bursting to the brim with a vast dusty sea of livestock: camels, cattle, donkeys and horses.

At the National Museum of Sudan, I spend an afternoon pouring through archaeological treasures dating back to the ancient Kush kingdom and the Nubia’s Christian period. Its green gardens are the resting ground for two Egyptian temples that had been relocated from the Nile-side city of Aswan.

But more so than the history lesson is the museum’s location at Al-Mogran – the point where the Nile River’s two major tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, meet before continuing north toward Egypt. Their convergence inspires my own journey around the desert kingdom. 

The Land of Kush

Like the Nile itself, I head north, following the river for some 200 miles past the 6^th Cataract (the last division of the river), traveling across the desert to Naqa and Musawarat to comb through their temples. My trip culminates at Meroe, capital of the ancient Meroitic dynasty, otherwise known as the Land of Kush, which flourished from about 1000–300 BC.

At the Royal City – a vast acreage of ruins on the banks of the Nile – I meet two German archaeologists packing up shop at the end of the digging season, as well as a group of village children and a flock of goats. Yet, there isn’t a single visitor or tour bus in sight.

By sunset, I am on my own amidst the sand-battered Meroe pyramids, with only the guards, camel drivers and souvenir sellers remaining. One of them, concerned by my lack of children, tries to sell me one of his.

“I have eight. Come back with your husband and you choose one to take home.” I protest, laughing, that it isn’t possible.

“Madonna did it, you do it too,” he replies with a broad smile. I still don’t know if he was serious or not.

Egypt’s pyramids impress with their stature but they have been engulfed by city, smog and tourist tats. In Meroe, the pyramids are tiny in comparison – cottages, not palaces – but there are over 600 of them dotting the sands, their conical peaks and squared entrances creating extraordinary silhouettes against the curve of the dunes. Best of all, Egypt’s crowds are nowhere in sight.

As I turn to leave, the sun casts a deep red-golden glow while a lizard skitters across the hot sand. But then the guard meanders into view, a mobile phone pressed to his ear. In the distance, a pylon mirrors the shape of the pyramids. Even the mud shacks in the desert have satellite dishes poking above their roof. Perhaps this world isn’t so alien after all.

This article was originally published in WildJunket Magazine August/September 2012. Get your copy of the magazine on Zinio or download our Newsstand app.